Valuing variability Lesonen, Sirkku
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10.33612/diss.124923644
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Lesonen, S. (2020). Valuing variability: Dynamic usage-based principles in the L2 development of four Finnish language learners. University of Groningen. https://doi.org/10.33612/diss.124923644
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3 LEARNING L2 FINNISH
This section presents an overview of the basic features of Finnish language (Section 3.1), focusing especially on how evaluation (Section 3.2) and existentiality (Section 3.3) are expressed in Finnish. Section 3.4 gives an overview of previous research on the development of L2 Finnish.
3.1 Basic features of Finnish
The Finnish language is part of the Uralic language family. It is an agglutinative language: words can be inflected by adding endings (bound morphemes, suffixes) to stems (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999). Because of its rich morphology, Finnish has often been considered difficult to learn (see Martin 1995: 7). Also the fact that many frequent words in Finnish are original, not loaned (for etymology of Finnish words, see Häkkinen 1997) can be considered to make the language difficult for its L2 learners. However, the fact that Finnish has been considered as difficult to learn may be due to the fact that it is structurally different from e.g. Germanic languages.
This section presents some basic features of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the Finnish language, and gives an overview of the key differences between standard and colloquial language. After that, some aspects of the Finnish constructions under investigation in this study - evaluative constructions (Section 3.2) and the existential construction (Section 3.3) - are presented. The examples given in these sections are conventional, target-like forms of Finnish: learner language will be discussed in Section 3.4: L2 Finnish development.
Phonology. Finnish speech sounds include eight vowels, which are divided
into front (i, e, y, ö, ä) and back vowels (u, o, a) (VISK § 2). A special characteristic of Finnish phonology is vowel harmony: only either front or back vowels are allowed within a word (except in compound words) (Laakso 2011: 182). The vowels i and e are neutral in this respect: they can be used with both front and back vowels (VISK § 2). Because of vowel harmony, suffixes typically have front and back allomorphs
(Laakso 2011: 182). In this work, these are marked with a capital letter, e.g. the inessive suffix -ssA includes the allomorphs -ssa and -ssä.
Finnish speech sounds include the following consonants – a total of 13 or 17, depending on how they are counted: p, t, k, (b), d, (g), m, n, ŋ, (f), s, (š aka ʃ), h, l, r, v, and j (VISK § 3); b, g, f, and š occur mainly in loan words (VISK § 6). Consonant gradation, which applies to the sounds k, p, and t (VISK § 41), causes morphophonological alternations within words. These three consonants appear either in the ‘strong’ or in the ‘weak’ grade, depending on whether the following syllable was originally open or closed. (Laakso 2011: 184.) Consonant gradation can therefore be seen as a phonological process even though in contemporary Finnish it cannot be seen as a purely phonological phenomenon (Karlsson 1983: 323). The strong and weak forms can manifest themselves in length (e.g. kurkku : kurkun ‘cucumber’), in quality (koti : kodin ‘home’), or in the case of k, in absence (keko : keon ‘pile’) (VISK § 41). In writing, the length of a sound is marked by doubling the letter, as in e.g. tuli vs. tuuli.
The two forms of variation in speech sounds mentioned above, namely vowel harmony and consonant gradation, are morphophonological in nature. These changes are manifestations of morphophonological variation, which is a typical characteristic of the Finnish language. (VISK § 40.)
Morphology. There are free and bound morphemes in the Finnish language.
Most bound morphs in Finnish are suffixes (Laakso 2011: 182). Words in Finnish can be divided into three groups following morphological criteria: 1) verbs (inflecting for tense, person, and mood), 2) nouns, adjectives, numerals, and pronouns (inflecting for case and number), and 3) uninflected or partly inflected particles (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999; Laakso 2011; VISK § 63). The inflection of the first group (verbs) will be described in Section 3.2.1 (evaluative verbs); the inflection of the second group (with reference only to adjectives, as they are relevant in this study) will be described in Section 3.2.2. In Finnish, negation can be expressed with the verb ei, which is inflected (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999). Ei can also be used uninflected as a negation particle (VISK, määritelmät ‘definitions’). Questions can be formed in two ways (see the section on evaluative verbs). In ‘yes/no’ questions, the morpheme -kO can be added to word stems in (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 71). A question may also start with an interrogative pronoun, such as mikä ‘what’ or missä ‘where’ (VISK § 1678).
In the Finnish language, the two most important ways to form new words - derivation and composition - are morphological. In derivation, new words are formed by adding affixes to the stem. (VISK § 146.) For example, the verb matkustaa ‘travel’ is derived from the noun matka ‘a trip’. In composition, two or more words are linked together to form a new word (VISK & 146), like in työpaikka ‘job’, which consists of two words, työ ‘work’ and paikka ‘place’.
Like the phonological and morphological phenomena that are intertwined in morphophonological variation (VISK § 40), morphology and syntax are also intertwined in aspects like congruence between the verb and the subject (see Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 55–60). In these morphosyntactic phenomena, a syntactical feature causes changes in morphemes.
Syntax. In Finnish, the predicate often comes after the subject: Finnish can
therefore be categorized as a SVO language (Subject, Verb, Object: direct word order) (Hakulinen & Karlsson 1995: 301-302; Laakso 2011: 190). In some sentence types, like the existential sentence and the possessive sentence, the predicate comes before the subject (VISK § 891) (see Section 3.3), and, depending on the emphasis, this kind of indirect word order is possible also in other sentence types.
There are several different sentence types in Finnish: three multi-purpose sentence types (transitive, intransitive, and copula sentences), and eight special sentence types (VISK § 891). Among these special sentence types, three are relevant in the context of this study: the causative emotion sentence (see 3.1.1), the existential sentence (see 3.1.2), and the possessive sentence (a sub-type of the existential sentence, see 3.1.2). All these sentence types can also be used as interrogatives (see more about interrogatives in 3.1.1) and as subordinate clauses. In Finnish, a subordinate clause begins with either a conjunction, a question word, a verb with the interrogative suffix -kO, or a relative pronoun (VISK § 884). As Example 7 shows, the word order in the subordinate clause is similar to that of the main clause. Learning to use subordinate clauses in Finnish is therefore not expected to cause L2 Finnish learners particular trouble (Reiman, 2011a).
(7) Toivo-n, että sinä tule-t pian.
Hope-1SG that you come-2SG soon
‘I hope that you come soon.’
Standard and colloquial language. Standard Finnish and colloquial Finnish
differ in many ways (see Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 244-248). The most important aspects of colloquial Finnish in the context of this study are the colloquial forms of the personal pronouns and some differences in lexicon. The following shows first the standard form and then the different variants of some of the personal pronouns used in colloquial language: minä vs. mä ‘I’, sinä vs. sä ‘you’, hän vs. se ‘he/she’, he vs. ne ‘they’. These forms are also used when the pronouns are inflected, e.g. minulla on vs.
mulla on ‘I have’; minun vs. mun ‘my’. The most important lexical difference in the
context of this study is the use of the verbs tykätä and pitää, both meaning ‘like’.
Tykätä is the colloquial lexical variant while pitää is used mainly in standard (often
written) language. The colloquial forms are widely used, even on public occasions. Standard Finnish as a whole is seldom the first variety of Finnish that speakers learn, although everyone learns it from an early age and it still has a strong position in the public sphere. There are some unwritten norms about good language for language used in the media, but there are no official regulations for media language in Finland. (Nuolijärvi & Vaattovaara 2011.) As pointed out by Mantila already in 2004, among young people, some widely spread colloquial features are used even in written texts (Mantila 2004). This kind of blending of spoken and written forms can be expected to be even more spread nowadays. In other words, colloquial language can be encountered in Finland in both spoken and written forms as well as in the public sphere.
3.2 Expressing evaluation in Finnish
3.2.1 Evaluative verbs
Expressing evaluation - that something is good or bad, desirable or undesirable - is probably a very fundamental aspect of our cognition: we tend to evaluate the things we see and experience. As pointed out by Alba-Juez and Thompson (2014: 5), expressing evaluation is “an all-pervading feature of language” and traces of evaluation can be found in almost every text or even every sentence. Alba-Juez and Thompson (2014) refer to studies by several scholars, including Osgood, Krzeszowski, and Felices-Lago, when they point out that the earliest categorization human babies make is the division of things into good and bad, and therefore the positive/negative axis is a very basic and important aspect of language.
There are many different ways of expressing evaluation, and many different linguistic means (Martin & White 2005). As Heinonen (2017: 40), who has studied the expressions of evaluation used by teachers in Finnish speaking classrooms points out, it can be difficult to study the language of evaluation because evaluations can be expressed in various ways at various levels. Expressions of evaluation can be found at the phonological level (e.g. prosodic features), the morphological level (e.g. evaluative prefixes or suffixes), the lexical level (words with an evaluative load), the syntactic level (e.g. word order), and the semantic level (e.g. the context dependency of meanings) (Alba-Juez & Thompson 2014: 10-11). In the present study, evaluations were expressed almost exclusively at the lexical level, and the two most important linguistic means of doing this that were detected in the data were evaluative verbs and evaluative adjectives. These two types of expressions are the focus of this section.
Verbs of emotion in Finnish, including those of evaluation, have been studied by Siiroinen (2001). Siiroinen divides Finnish verbs expressing emotion and evaluation into four groups, based on Croft’s (1991) division of verbs: inchoative, activity, stative, and causative verbs. According to Siiroinen (2001), inchoative verbs of emotion express a change in emotional state. In these constructions, the experiencer has no control over the change, as in the expression Hän pelästyi. ’He took fright’. (Siiroinen 2001: 35.) Activity emotive verbs are similar to concrete verbs: Hän
nauttii ‘He enjoys’ (Siiroinen 2001: 43). The participants in this study used mainly
stative and causative verbs to express evaluation, so only these types will be described here in greater detail.
When the emotion is expressed with a stative verb of emotion, the emotional state described is rather stable and the experiencer (the one who feels) is the grammatical subject of the construction (Siiroinen 2001: 44). Example 8 shows a stative emotive verbal construction.
(8) Minä rakasta-n sinu-a.
I love-1SG you-PAR
’I love you.’
As in Example 8, many stative constructions expressing emotion include a complement, which is very natural; we want to express our evaluation of something. In a stative verbal construction, the complement of the verb can be a noun phrase (NP) or a non-finite clause (NFC), depending on the verb (for some verbs both are possible). If the NP complement is in the nominative, genitive, partitive, or accusative case, the complement is regarded as an object of the construction (VISK § 925), like in Example 8. In the rakastaa ‘love’ construction, the object is always in the partitive form, i.e. the verb rakastaa governs the partitive case (Markus & Pomozi 2004). Some other stative verbal constructions govern another case (for government, see Alhoniemi, Ikola & Rintala 1992: 170-171), e.g., the tykätä ‘like’ construction requires the elative case of the NP complement (Markus & Pomozi 2004) (see Example 9). If the complement is a non-finite clause, a basic form of the A-infinitive is used, as shown in Example 10 (for infinitives, see VISK § 120). A verb chain, with an MA-infinitive form (see Karlsson 1999: 188–192), as in Example 11, is also a possible complement in a stative emotion construction. Like nouns, MA-infinitives often take a case ending (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 24).
(9) Minä tykkää-n pitsa-sta.
I like-1SG pizza-ELAT
‘I like pizza.’
(10) Minä tykkää-n laula-a kuoro-ssa.
I like-1SG sing-INF choir-INE
‘I like to sing in a choir.’
(11) Tykkää-n men-nä nukku-ma-an aikaisin. Like-1SG go-INF sleep-3.INF-ILL early ’I like to go to sleep early.’
The verb of emotion within the stative emotion construction (e.g. tykätä ‘like’ in Examples 9–11) shows inflection for person (see Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 21–22). The negation is expressed with the word ei (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 69). Examples 12–17 show the conjugation of the verb rakastaa ‘love’ for person, and its negation is also presented. In other than the third persons, the pronoun can be left out. For clarity of presentation, Examples 12–17 do not have complements.
(12) Minä rakasta-n / e-n rakasta
I love-1SG / NEG-1SG love
(13) Sinä rakasta-t / e-t rakasta
You love-2SG / NEG-2SG love
‘You love/don’t love’
(14) Hän rakasta-a / e-i rakasta
He/she love-3SG / NEG-3SG love
‘He/she loves/doesn’t love’
(15) Me rakasta-mme / e-mme rakasta
We love-1PL / NEG-1PL love
‘We love/don’t love’
(16) Te rakasta-tte / e-tte rakasta
You love-2PL / NEG-2PL love
‘You love/don’t love’
(17) He rakasta-vat / ei-vät rakasta
They love-3PL / NEG-3PL love
‘They love/don’t love’
Contrary to the situation in stative verbal constructions, in causative verbal constructions the experiencer is the grammatical object of the construction (see Vilkuna 2000: 134; Siiroinen 2001: 46-47). In these constructions, the verb is always in the third person singular form: the experiencer is marked with a pronoun, noun, or proper noun (see Examples 18 and 19) in the partitive case (see Siiroinen 2001: 48).
(18) Minu-a ärsyttä-ä.
I-PAR annoy-3SG ‘I am annoyed.’
(19) Sinu-a ärsyttä-ä.
You-PAR annoy-3SG ’You are annoyed.’
Evaluative verbs (like any verb in Finnish) can be conjugated in four tenses: present, past, perfect, and pluperfect (see Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 152-161). The grammatical marker for the past tense is -i (Karlsson 1999 & Chesterman: 152). However, some verbs such as haluta ‘want’ and tykätä ‘like’ have a change in the stem when the past tense is formed: the last A is changed to s (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 155). The perfect and pluperfect are compound tenses: they consist of two words (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 156, 158). The first part is the verb olla ‘be’ and the second is the main verb, used in the -nUt participle (VISK § 122). Examples 20–23 show the use of the four tenses with the verb tykätä ‘like’ in the first person singular form.
(20) Minä tykkää-n opiskelu-sta.
I like-1SG studying-ELAT ‘I like studying.’
(21) Minä tykkä-si-n opiskelu-sta.
I like-PST-1SG studying-ELAT
‘I liked studying.’
(22) Minä ole-n tykän-nyt opiskelu-sta.
I be-1SG like-PPC studying-ELAT
‘I have liked studying.’
(23) Minä ol-i-n tykän-nyt opiskelu-sta.
I be-PST-1SG like-PPC studying-ELAT ‘I had liked studying.’
Like almost all verbs, also evaluative verbs can be used in four moods: indicative, conditional, potential, and imperative (see Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 162–171). The participants in this study used evaluative verbal constructions only in the indicative and conditional forms. There is no specific morphological marker for the indicative (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 162). For the conditional, the marker is
-isi, which is added to the stem before the personal suffix (Karlsson & Chesterman
1999: 162). Example 24 shows the verb haluta ‘want’ in the conditional form. (24) Halua-isi-n matkusta-a Saksa-an.
Want-COND-1SG travel-INF Germany-ILL ‘I would like to travel to Germany.’
Finnish verbs are also inflected for voice (active and passive). The participants of this study did not use the passive voice when expressing evaluation.
In Finnish, a question normally starts with an interrogative pronoun, such as
mikä ‘what’ or missä ‘where’, or with a verb which has a suffix -kO (VISK § 1678).
Examples 25 and 26 show these two types of questions. (25) Mi-stä musiiki-sta tykkää-t?
What-ELAT music-ELAT like-2SG
’What sort of music do you like?’
(26) Tykkää-tte-kö pitsa-sta?
Like-2PL-Q pizza-ELAT
Two evaluative verbal constructions are especially important in the context of this study, because the third research question concerns the development of productivity and abstractness of two verbal constructions, haluta ‘want’ and tykätä ‘like’. These two verbs can be conjugated like any other verb in Finnish and therefore the slot for the verbs haluta and tykätä within these constructions can be very variable. In addition, the complement slot can be variable in both cases. The complement of the verb haluta can be a noun phrase (NP), a non-finite clause (NFC), or a subordinate clause (see Kielitoimiston sanakirja). Example 24 shows a NFC complement. The form of the NP with the haluta construction depends on the context; it can be in the partitive, genitive, or accusative case. Examples 27–29 show these three different options. The verb haluta can also have a subordinate clause as a complement. Example 30 shows this kind of construction.
(27) Halua-n pitsa-a.
Want-1SG pizza-PAR ‘I want (some) pizza.’ (28) Halua-n pitsa-n.
I want-1SG pizza-GEN ‘I w ant (the whole) pizza.’
(29) Halua-n sinu-t tä-hän joukkuee-seen.
Want-1SG you-ACC this-ILL team-ILL ‘I want you in this team’
(30) Haluan, että tulet tänne.
Want-1SG that come-2SG here ‘I want you to come here.’
The verb tykätä can have either an NP or an NFC as a complement. The NP complement is always in the elative case (Markus & Pomozi 2004) (see Example 25). The case marker of the elative case is –stA (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 110). Example 31 shows an example of a non-finite clause complement construction within the tykätä ‘like’ construction.
(31) Tykkää-n laula-a kuoro-ssa.
Like-1SG sing-INF choir-INE ‘I like to sing in a choir.’
3.2.2 Evaluative adjectives
Besides verbs, also adjectives can be used to express evaluation. It should be noted that not all adjectives are evaluative; there is also a large group of adjectives that describe things without evaluating them, e.g. pieni ‘small’, or kova ‘hard’. However,
whether an adjective is being used for evaluation or description often depends on the context. Some basic features of (evaluative) adjectives will be described in this next section.
Evaluation is typically expressed by an adjectival construction, which often occurs in a comment clause. In a comment clause, the speaker expresses his or her evaluation of, or attitude toward, something (VISK § 1212). Typically it is a copula clause (VISK § 1212), e.g., Se on tosi outoa ‘It is really weird’. In this sentence type, the adjective is used predicatively (see Hakulinen & Karlsson 1995: 77). An adjective can also be used in sentence types other than those with a copula clause to express evaluation. The crucial point is that the sentence includes an evaluative element. (VISK § 1212.) For example, in this study, expressions like Söimme hyvää ruokaa ‘We ate good food’ have been categorized as evaluative because besides expressing the fact that the speaker ate with other people, she also expresses her evaluation of the food: it was good. In this utterance, the adjective is used attributively (see Hakulinen & Karlsson 1995: 77) in a transitive construction. In the data of this study, adjectives were also used in a possessive construction, e.g. Minulla ei *oli *hyvää *ideoja ‘I didn’t have any good ideas’, and in an existential construction, e.g. Ruotsissa on hyvä
*maaster ‘There is a good master’s program in Sweden’.10
Adjectives show inflection for case and number (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 18) and they typically appear before their heads (Laakso 2011: 192) (see Examples 32 and 33).
(32) Käv-i-mme kiva-ssa paika-ssa.
Go-PST-1PL nice-INE place-INE
‘We went to a nice place.’
(33) Käv-i-mme kivo-i-ssa paiko-i-ssa.
Go-PST-1PL nice-PL-INE place-PL-INE
‘We went to nice places.’
Some adjectives do not show inflection; examples are ensi ‘next’ (Hakulinen & Karlsson 1995: 78) or the adjectival-like evaluative word lempi ‘favorite’. The comparison of adjectives is expressed with the comparative and the superlative. The grammatical marker for the comparative is -mpi, and for the superlative it is -in. (Karlsson & Chesterman 1999: 211–217.)
3.3 Expressing existentiality in Finnish
Existentiality is expressed with the existential construction in Finnish: Suomessa on
järviä ‘There are lakes in Finland’. This construction is peculiar in many ways. The
10 The four examples given in this paragraph are learner-language constructions from the data of
this study although the examples given in this section are generally conventional Finnish constructions, not learner-language constructions
existential sentence has been studied and described by numerous researchers, for example Ikola (1954, 1964), Hakanen (1972), and Vähämäki (1984). The existential sentence has been described from the point of view of cognitive linguistics by e.g. Perko (1992), Huumo and Perko (1993a, 1993b), Huumo (1997, 2003), and Helasvuo and Huumo (2010). According to Ikola (1954), a sentence is an existential sentence if it is about a certain place or state and it expresses one of the following things about it: 1) what the place or state includes, 2) what it is going to include, or 3) what it has stopped including. Generally speaking, the existential construction expresses the idea that there is something somewhere. In this section, the elements of the Finnish existential construction will be described insofar as they are relevant to the context of this study.
The Finnish existential construction has many special characteristics: there is no congruence between verb and subject, the subject comes after the verb, and the subject can be in the partitive case (VISK § 893). In a prototypical existential construction, the predicate is the verb olla ‘be’, but some other intransitive verbs can also be used (VISK § 893). Example 34 presents a prototypical example of the Finnish existential construction.
(34) Suome-ssa on paljon järv-i-ä.
Finland-INE be(3SG) many lake-PL-PAR
‘There are many lakes in Finland.’
As Example 34 shows, the subject of the existential construction can be in the partitive. This is the case if the subject is plural or if the subject is an uncountable (or mass) noun (Example 35). In negative existential constructions the partitive must be used (Example 36). (VISK § 893.)
(35) Tee-ssä on kofeiini-a.
Tea-INE be(3SG) caffeine-PAR ‘There is caffeine in tea.’
(36) Erfurti-ssa ei ole islanni-n kurssi-a.
Erfurt-INE NEG be Icelandic-GEN course-PAR ‘There is no Icelandic course in Erfurt.’
The case choice for the subject in the existential construction (nominative vs. partitive) has been shown to cause difficulty to L2 Finnish learners. This, as well as L2 Finnish learners’ use of existential constructions in general, has been studied by Kajander (2013), and Ivaska (2010, 2011). The findings of these studies will be discussed in Section 3.4.
The noun phrase in the existential construction, which refers (normally) to a place, is topicalized: the existential construction says something about this place. Often this noun phrase refers to something that has not previously been mentioned: it introduces a new topic in the discourse. (VISK § 894.) In the data of this study, the
noun phrase is often in either the inessive or the adessive case. The noun phrase can also indicate possession, and these possessive constructions are sometimes categorized as a subtype of the Finnish existential construction (see VISK § 895) because their structure resembles the structure of the existential construction (Example 37). In this study, the possessive construction is excluded from the analysis because its meaning differs from the meaning of the existential construction, even though the constructions resemble each other structurally.
(37) Minu-lla on työpaikka.
I-ADE be(3SG) job ‘I have a job.’
Besides the possessive construction, Finnish also has a construction called a
tilalause (a clause describing states of the weather or certain natural or temporal
conditions) which because of its pattern has been categorized as a subtype of the existential construction (e.g. in VISK § 891, 900). Structurally this construction can be very similar to the existential construction, but the meaning is slightly different: it does not explicitly express the existence of something somewhere. However, in the current study it was decided to include this construction in the analysis because it expresses the presence of the characteristic in question (e.g. coldness, as in Example 38) in the place that the noun phrase refers to. In other words, the conceptualization of the tilalause (for which there is no direct equivalent in English) is close to the conceptualization of the existential construction.
(38) Suome-ssa on kylmä.
Finland-INE be(3SG) cold
‘It is cold in Finland.’
In this section, some basic features of Finnish, as well as conventionalized, target-like ways of expressing the meanings of evaluation and existentiality, have been described. It should be noted, however, that the primary aim of this study is not to compare the linguistic means that learners use to express these meanings with conventional constructions or a ‘native-like’ repertoire: the starting point of the study is not comparative. Instead, the main aim of the present study is to discover what kind of constructions learners use to express these meanings and how they develop over time. However, since the use of conventional constructions to express meanings in the target language can be seen as a goal of L2 learning, the conventional constructions do play a role in the investigation of L2 development.
3.4 L2 Finnish development
L2 Finnish development is a relatively young branch of research, but during the past 30 years it has become of increasing interest to researchers. Many of the aspects of L2 Finnish that have already been studied are relevant in the context of this study. These aspects include, for example, the use of constructions at different proficiency levels, the processing of L2 Finnish forms (also in interaction), cross-linguistic influence, and vocabulary learning. Some of the findings of these studies and their relevance for the current study are discussed in this section. However, the main interests of the current study - interaction, variability, and abstractness in learners’ developing L2 constructions - have not been studied extensively in the context of L2 Finnish, although there are two earlier studies that have explicitly investigated some aspects of the interaction of subsystems and variability in L2 Finnish: Spoelman and Verspoor (2010) and Tilma (2014). These studies will be discussed at the end of this section.
The use of L2 Finnish constructions across different proficiency levels (CEFR) has been studied in the extensive Cefling and Topling research projects (University of Jyväskylä).11 In these research projects, the written texts of L2 learners (both adult
and young) from CEFR levels A1 to C2 have been studied from various points of view. The research setting in the Cefling project was cross-sectional, and in the Topling project the data collection was longitudinal. These studies give us valuable information about the constructions that characterize learner language at different proficiency levels, and how these constructions are used. The findings of these studies show that some constructions are used quite evenly across all proficiency levels. For example, the frequencies of negation and local cases do not vary greatly across the different levels, which shows that learners at all levels use these constructions to fulfil their communicative needs. With these constructions, the higher proficiency is manifested not by an increase in use but by an increase in accuracy. (Martin, Mustonen, Reiman & Seilonen 2010.) Mustonen (2015) shows that with local cases, higher proficiency is manifested by an increase in the use of local cases for expressing more abstract meanings (e.g. olen kaupassa ‘I am in a shop’ vs.
olen kuumeessa ‘I have a fever’). Other constructions are used more at the higher
proficiency levels than the lower levels. For example, the use of the passive increases relatively steadily from A1 to C2 level (Seilonen 2013: 58), and the transitive construction is used increasingly at B1 level (Reiman 2011b: 150). Reiman (2011b) shows that the transitive construction is used in more diverse environments as the proficiency level increases: the frequency of transitive constructions with infinitive structures showed an increase between level B1 and C2 (Reiman 2011b: 152) and a steady increase in the use of transitive constructions with passive structures could be identified up to B level (Reiman 2011b: 151). The findings of cross-sectional studies are valuable in the formulation of research questions and hypotheses for longitudinal case studies, like the current study: they can give us insights into how development
11 The Cefling (2007–2009) and Topling (2010–2013) projects were funded by the Academy of
might be manifested. For example, from such findings we might predict that when individual learners express evaluation, there will be an increase in the use or accuracy of certain types of constructions, or that the constructions will be used in more varied ways and contexts over time.
Finnish being a morphologically rich language, L2 Finnish researchers have been interested in the processing of morphological forms. Martin (1995) shows in her pioneering study of L2 Finnish processing - in line with later usage-based perspectives - that two processing mechanisms, namely analogical production (related to pattern finding and categorization) and rote learning (learning lexically specific items) play an important role in certain areas when learning Finnish morphology. Martin (1995) also shows that rule descriptions are used in L2 learners’ morphological production. In the context of the current study, the morphological aspects of Finnish are especially relevant for the third research question, on the development of the abstractness of L2 constructions.
The rich morphology of Finnish has its consequences for the development of abstractness in the L2: the richer the morphology, the more diverse is the language the learners are exposed to, and this may speed up schema formation (Steinkrauss 2009; see also Section 2.1.3). Even though the schematization of L2 Finnish constructions has not been studied earlier, the productiveness of L1 speakers’ syntax has been investigated by Nieminen (2007), who used the Finnish version of the Index of Productive Syntax (Nieminen & Torvelainen 2003) in her investigation of the development of morphosyntactic complexity in early child language. The Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn) can be used to investigate the somewhat similar focus of the third research question of this study (the abstractness and productiveness of L2 constructions): although the IPSyn does not focus on particular constructions, it can be used to evaluate learner language productivity more holistically. In the Finnish version of the IPSyn, 49 different constructions are rated in terms of their productivity: if the learner uses only one form of a construction, it gets the value 1, and if more than one form is used (different realizations of the construction), it gets the value 2. The maximum IPSyn for a learner is therefore 98, and the higher the IPSyn, the more productive and complex the learner language. The IPSyn was developed to investigate L1 English development, and its original version focuses on the productiveness of syntax (Scarborough 1990). Because of the rich morphology of Finnish, the Finnish version of the IPSyn focuses on morphosyntactic aspects (Nieminen & Torvelainen 2003). The need for the Finnish version of the IPSyn indicates how different the development of productivity in L1 or L2 may be for morphologically rich and poor languages.
In the field of L2 Finnish development, some studies have emphasized the social and interactional aspects of L2 learning. In line with the dynamic usage-based perspective, where L2 constructions are seen to emerge from usage events, Suni (2008), Kurhila (2006) and Lilja (2010) have shown that interactions between L2 learners and more proficient speakers can function as resources for language development. Suni (2008) studied the interaction between an L1 Finnish speaker and two Vietnamese learners of Finnish and found - actually in line with CDST assumptions - a conditional interaction between the receptive segmenting of
morphology and the production of morphological forms. The segmenting of morphology, which manifested itself in repetition practices in interaction, was a precursor of the production of morphological forms (found in longitudinal data collection over 10 weeks). Suni (2008) also found that for the Vietnamese-speaking learners, the processing of morphology required more time than the processing of some other aspects, and she was therefore able to show that the typological difference between the L1 and L2 (isolating Vietnamese and agglutinative Finnish) affected the processing of linguistic forms. Suni (2008) also showed that meaning is often co-constructed in interaction between an L2 learner and a more proficient speaker, and how support from a speaking partner may help a beginner L2 learner to move toward more independent language use. This is also briefly discussed in the current study in Substudy 4.
Kurhila (2006) and Lilja (2010) both used Conversation Analysis in their investigation into learning L2 Finnish. Kurhila’s (2006) findings indicate that linguistic forms are not a priority in interaction: returning to the talk in progress is often seen as more important than correcting the non-target-like forms produced by the L2 learner. In Kurhila’s data, native speakers correct their non-beginner-learner speaking partners’ turns (linguistic other-correction) “when they can avoid the sequentially disruptive consequences of the activity” (Kurhila 2006: 87). A similar kind of observation has been made by Aalto (1997). Aalto (1997: 178) investigated how L1 speakers and L2 speakers at different proficiency levels express opinions in interaction and shows that L1 speakers rarely react to L2 speakers’ unconventional ways to express meanings. These findings resonate with the aims of the current study. In this study, the aim is to investigate how L2 learners manage to make meaning for the purposes of social interaction: what kinds of linguistic means they use to express a certain meaning. The primary focus is therefore not on linguistic forms. However, Kurhila (2006) shows that linguistic forms are sometimes brought up by L2 speakers in grammatical and lexical searches. Also from Lilja’s (2010) analysis it becomes evident that L2 learners often focus on lexical questions in interaction, and that these interactions provide opportunities to learn new vocabulary.
Vocabulary learning in L2 Finnish has been studied by Honko (2013). Honko (2013) shows that lexical diversity (measured with the Sum of probabilities index) expanded in young L2 Finnish learners during a three-year follow-up. The development of lexical diversity is related to the abstractness of L2 constructions: the slots within a construction can only be varied if the learner has lexical material that they can use in the slot. As Honko (2013) pointed out, an extensive lexicon is often related to in-depth lexical knowledge and the ability to adapt lexicon to usage. The L2 learner needs to develop such knowledge in order to use new lexical items appropriately in their target constructions when the constructions become more productive over time.
Comparative settings have been used in several Finnish L2 learning studies. For example, Kaivapalu (2005) compared the inflection of Finnish nouns by speakers of Estonian (a language closely related to Finnish) and Russian (not a related language). The particular interest of her study was the influence of a closely related source
language on the processing of morphological inflections in L2 Finnish. She found similar processing mechanisms to those detected by Martin (1995), although Estonian and Russian speakers used different mechanisms: Estonian speakers relied more on analogies, and positive transfer could be detected in their language, while Russian speakers relied primarily on rule-based processing. Kaivapalu (2005) points out - in fact in line with the Dynamic Systems Theory Approach, although this theoretical framework had not yet been formulated - that the source language affects the inflectional process in interaction with other factors such as the complexity, productivity, and frequency of the targeted pattern and the strength of the morphological cues. In other words, the source language and the target language are in interaction with each other and with the developing L2: it is a dynamic system in which changes emerge from the interaction of its parts. Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008) also refer to cross-linguistic influence as a complex phenomenon with interacting variables, such as the language user’s conceptualizations and perceptions.
The role of the same closely related source language, Estonian, on L2 Finnish development has also been studied by Spoelman (2011) and Nissilä (2011). Spoelman (2011: 298) showed that there was both positive and negative L1 influence on the use of the partitive in Finnish; a closely related language is thus not always helpful in L2 production. Nissilä (2011) pointed out that although a closely related language helps L2 Finnish learners in learning government, the most frequent verbs are the easiest for learners. As already pointed out, cross-linguistic influence is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon.
Cross-linguistic effects have also been studied by Ivaska (2015), who investigated how different L1s could be recognized in advanced learners’ production by using a corpus-driven method called Key Structure Analysis. Ivaska (2015) found some differences in the academic texts produced by advanced L2 Finnish learners from different L1 backgrounds. For example, the more frequent use of conjunctions could be detected in the Hungarian-speaking and Japanese-speaking learners’ corpora compared to the Czech-, Lithuanian-, and Russian-speaking learners’ corpora. As Ivaska (2015) pointed out, these differences might be due to differences in the use of conjunctions and in academic writing conventions in the learners’ L1. The differences between the advanced L2 Finnish learners and L1 speakers could also be explained by the fact that Finnish academic writing conventions were not (yet) familiar to the L2 learners: L2 learners may be familiar with target constructions but not with their use and special functions in an unfamiliar text genre. In his discussion Ivaska (2015) therefore emphasizes the usage-based nature of L2 development: the target-like, idiomatic usage of certain constructions requires participation in the usage events of the particular context (e.g. academic texts). Ivaska also refers to Complexity Theory in his discussion: the learner needs to adapt his or her linguistic system to the requirements of the new text genre, and changes in learner language emerge from the interaction between the learner language and the environment.
The theoretical framework of Complex Dynamic Systems has not (yet) been widely used in the field of Finnish L2 research. However, a rather similar way of viewing learner language as a system can be found in earlier studies. As already pointed out, Kaivapalu (2005) viewed the aspects of source and target language as
subsystems that affect each other, and Ivaska (2015) referred to the dynamic nature of L2 Finnish development. Siitonen (1999) showed that the interaction between morphology, syntax and semantics (i.e., the subsystems) of agentless constructions based on automative verb derivations is challenging for advanced L2 learners. However, there are only two studies that have explicitly used the Dynamic Systems Theory Approach to study L2 Finnish development. Spoelman and Verspoor (2010) investigated the interaction and variability patterns in complexity and accuracy measures in one beginner learner of Finnish, and Tilma (2014) investigated the interaction and variability in complexity and accuracy measures of two learner groups and two focal learners in different learning contexts: mainly meaning-based and mainly structure-based instruction. Spoelman and Verspoor (2010) focused on word, noun phrase and sentence complexity and accuracy (for the operationalization of these concepts, see Spoelman and Verspoor 2010: 8–9). Tilma’s (2014) focus was also on syntactic and morphological complexity and accuracy (for the operationalization of these concepts, see Tilma 2014: 180).
Both Spoelman and Verspoor (2010) and Tilma (2014) found some interesting interaction patterns between different complexity and accuracy measures (i.e., different subsystems) in the developing L2 Finnish. Spoelman and Verspoor (2010: 547–548) showed that word complexity and noun phrase (NP) complexity as well as word complexity and sentence complexity are connected growers (in other words, they have a supportive relationship). However, a competitive interaction was found between NP complexity and sentence complexity, showing that there is a complex interaction between the different complexity levels (Spoelman & Verspoor 2010: 548). Quite surprisingly, in Spoelman and Verspoor’s (2010: 550) study, the interaction between the complexity and accuracy measures seemed rather random: no competition between these aspects could be detected. In this regard, also Tilma’s (2014) findings are mixed: for Andrea, who was learning Finnish by a mainly meaning-based approach, the growth in the use of complex clauses (complexity) was related to higher accuracy, i.e., these two measures were in a supportive relationship (Tilma 2014: 164). For Kim, who was learning Finnish by a mainly structure-based approach, this relationship was competitive (more complex clauses were not in relation to greater accuracy) (Tilma 2014: 164). Evidence from studies conducted in cross-sectional settings suggests that complexity is a precursor for accuracy (i.e., they are in a conditional relationship). In other words, a certain level of complexity needs to be achieved before accuracy can develop (Martin, Mustonen, Reiman & Seilonen 2010; see also the summary of the Topling and Cefling projects, Lesonen 2013). In this respect, the findings of cross-sectional (Cefling) and longitudinal (Spoelman & Verspoor 2010; Tilma 2014) studies are not in line with each other: generalizing from the group to the individual seems to be problematic.
Regarding the variability patterns, both Tilma’s (2014) and Spoelman and Verspoor’s (2010) findings point to higher variability in the early stages of learning. Tilma (2014: 145) showed that one learner’s accuracy in both use and forms of cases exhibited more variability initially, but later on the variability of these measures decreased. Moreover, some learners showed peaks in one complexity measure - the use of cases - suggesting that overuse (i.e., high variability) might serve as a way to
acquire something new (see Tilma 2014: 93). Also Spoelman and Verspoor (2010: 540– 541) found that variability in case accuracy (all case errors taken together) decreases over time: the learner language system stabilized in this respect around the middle of the data collection period. Also the complexity measures (word complexity, NP complexity, and sentence complexity) showed a steady bandwidth towards the end of the period of observation, pointing to a relatively stable system (Spoelman & Verspoor 2010: 547). These findings suggest that variability is a functional property of a developing system: when new things are learned and tried out, the system can temporarily be shaky, but later on, as more target-like ways of expressing meanings are found, the system stabilizes.
Spoelman and Verspoor’s (2010) and Tilma’s (2014) studies explicitly adopt the Dynamic Systems Theory view. Contrary to the present study, the starting point of the investigation in those studies was structural features of the learner language: complexity and accuracy measures. The current study starts the investigation from meaning: interaction, variability and abstractness are investigated in the expression of two meanings, namely evaluation and existentiality. L2 Finnish learners’ expressions of evaluation have not been studied earlier, but L2 Finnish learners‘ existential constructions have been studied by Kajander (2013) and Ivaska (2010, 2011). Some findings of Kajander’s dissertation as well as Ivaska’s studies deserve our further attention here.
Kajander’s (2013) findings show that the three different types of existential construction - location-themed, possessor-themed, and others with neither of these themes - were used more or less equally at the different CEFR levels: no type could be used as an indicator of a certain proficiency level. Besides frequency, Kajander (2013) also studied the accuracy of the constructions. Accuracy rates for the different elements of the existential constructions were calculated (accurate forms/all forms*100). Kajander’s (2013) results show that 80% accuracy for the predicate and for the case marking of the locative was reached at the A2 level. For the subject, 80% accuracy was reached later, at the B1 level. These findings show that the form of the subject in the existential construction can be problematic for L2 learners. The form of the subject in the existential construction (and the impact of instruction on it) is investigated in the fourth research question of the present study.
Kajander (2013) utilizes the concept of construction in his study, although it is not strictly applied in the analysis. However, in Kajander’s study, language learning is viewed as learning units that are larger than words, and therefore Kajander’s study comes close to usage-based views of language learning. The units of interest in Kajander’s study are expressions of existentiality: that something exists, starts to exist, or stops existing. Kajander shows in his definition of the existential sentence that the form and meaning of an expression are intertwined. He points out that the main aim of his study is to describe how L2 Finnish learners use sentences in which alternation of the form of the subject (nominative or partitive) is possible; in the Finnish language, these constructions have an existential meaning. (Kajander 2013: 13–14.) All three different types of existential construction are included in Kajander’s analysis (location-themed, possessor-themed, and others), so the starting point of Kajander’s study was different from the starting point of the current study: there,
formal aspects were emphasized in the process of data selection. However, regardless of this difference in the data selection, Kajander identifies similar kinds of constructions in the developing L2 to those found in this study, especially with regard to location-themed constructions.
Ivaska (2010) focuses on the form of the subject in the existential construction in an advanced L2 learners’ corpus. Ivaska (2010) shows that the nominative form of the subject is more frequent in the L2 speakers’ corpus than in an L1 speakers’ corpus, which can partly be explained by L2 speakers’ non-idiomatic use of the subject. According to Ivaska (2010), this overuse of the nominative case is related to processes of analogy: based on previous encounters with the nominative form of the subject in other types of constructions, the L2 learner may overgeneralize the nominative form for the subject in the existential construction as well. Besides a group level analysis, Ivaska (2010) also traced two learners’ use of existential constructions over one year. For one learner, there was a decrease in the use of the nominative subject and increase in the use of the partitive subject over time. The non-idiomatic use of the subject could be detected only after the learner started to use the partitive form; sometimes a decrease in idiomatic language use may actually be a sign of greater language proficiency. Ivaska refers to Ellis (1985: 95-96) in his discussion of this finding: in some phases of learning, the learner language may be idiomatic but it can lack a particular function of the target language. This could be the case for the learner in Ivaska’s study. In another study, Ivaska (2011) shows that L2 Finnish learners might have difficulty not only with a non-idiomatic use of the subject in the existential construction but also with the congruence of the verb and the word order (Ivaska 2011). The idiomatic, or target-like use of the Finnish existential construction is touched upon with the fourth research question of this study.
As mentioned earlier in this section, L2 Finnish development has not been studied extensively in the theoretical framework of Complex Dynamic Systems. Usage-based approaches on the other hand have been adopted in a number of studies, and these studies form a firm basis for a dynamic usage-based study on L2 Finnish learning. For example Honko’s (2013) longitudinal study on lexical development, Mustonen’s (2015) cross-sectional investigation of the use of local cases, Ivaska’s (2015) corpus study on very advanced learners’ constructions, Seilonen’s (2013) cross-sectional study on L2 Finnish learners’ impersonal constructions, and Reiman’s (2011a; 2011b) cross-sectional investigations of L2 Finnish learners’ transitive constructions are based on usage-based assumptions on language learning. In the context of L2 Finnish, the usage-based view is present not only in research but also in language education, since functional L2 pedagogy, which is strongly based on the idea of learning in social interaction (Aalto et al. 2009), is nowadays widely accepted - at least in principle - by L2 Finnish teachers and educators. The participants in this study were learning Finnish in an instructional setting in which functional L2 pedagogy was used. Let us now look more closely at the participants and the instructional setting, the data collection, and the methods of data analysis.
